🤷‍♀️ works on my machine

Like all psychoactive substances, it varies from person to person. I have been on SSRIs at one point and I just dropped them after months of mostly experiencing just annoying side effects. A friend of mine is okay with them and told me they genuinely help her be functional.

It’s extra funny because these are the types of people who were smuglording whenever any sort of high value Russian asset got hit by Ukrainian drones or missiles far behind the frontline. Whoooops, turns out this kind of threat is genuinely difficult to defend against and it’s not just an issue with the inadequacy of the orcish brainpan, who would have thought.

I have ADHD and my own shame pile of half finished books so I empathize with how hard it can be to just sit down and read the damn theory. I definitely think you have a good basis with the idea of compiling short and impactful tiktok/insta/youtube content as a jumping board for delving deeper. In fact, the thing that pushed me to make the effort and start reading in my very own political journey was watching youtube videos in my lunch break that had a bibliography in the description and directly cited the works during the clip. These are significantly longer than what you are going for and I know he is guilty of his own fair share of cringe, but I give a lot of credit to Bad Empanada’s videos on the historical link between the USian concept of Manifest Destiny and the Nazis’ Lebensraum and the one on the invention of the modern concept of the white race on this. I distinctly remember watching him lay it out straight from the books and thinking to myself “damn this is crazy stuff I really need to read more”.

In a way, the strategy I pursued above is simply emulating that experience with my friends when the opportunity arises, except that I play the part of the youtube video in real life and hope my analysis is good enough to prompt them to want to learn more for themselves.

Good luck in your endeavors, hopefully we both get some extra comrades out of this. I’m actually quite hopeful myself after hearing my friends independently question the narrative on Iran, it really feels like the world is slowly changing. Right now, as communists, we need to do our best to reach people who are willing to listen and help them get started on the path of liberating political education.

Lmao based, I hope this is real. Infinite trolling upon the western world.

Sadly, the state of LGBT+ rights in Russia and other formerly socialist eastern european countries is absolutely horrible. Homophobia and transphobia are extremely common among the general population, anti-LGBT legislation is actively being introduced, while even basic civil partnerships are illegal.

Progress is extremely slow and made worse by the fact that LGBT+ issues are seen as an alien element pushed by the West and subversive NGOs. I believe that liberation from imperialism is necessary for conditions to improve in any durable and significant manner.

With my past experience of trying to get people to read the most basic, short, easy and lib-friendly texts and 10-20 minute articles, I wouldn’t go for the approach of dropping a reading list on them unless they are the types who read encyclopedias for fun, or they actually ask you for reading material. And I wouldn’t go straight to communist theory with proletariat and classes and scary German philosophers and Russian revolutionaires either.

Theory is essential but you need to ease people into it. Make sure that you are up to date yourself with literature that deals with issues relevant to your friends, and that isn’t just straight up Marx or Lenin because libs are primed to be hostile towards those. In the case of US aggression, I would recommend stuff like Washington Bullets, Killing Hope, Against Empire, or The Jakarta Method. Then, since you mentioned these are people close to you that you interact with on a regular basis, spend time with them, listen to them, and capitalize on every opportunity to drop more of your leftist analysis while pointing at the resources that you used to build it. Essentially, you have to market reading to them by being well informed on topics they care about and showing the work that got you here.

I know a few people similar to your friends who are starting to question the official narrative on countries like Iran and the DPRK. One of them asked me for a link to Killing Hope, but this was after he brought up North Korea himself in light of recent events and we spent some time talking about the Korean War, its many associated US crimes against humanity, as well as how this pattern of US aggression repeated throughout the post WW2 world. I have no idea if the guy will actually read it, but if he does it will be easier to build on that and pitch Lenin to him.

We are fighting against a wall of heavily reinforced anticommunist narratives and liberal civil religion, which is why I prefer the cautious approach. Marxist-Leninist reading lists are for people who have broken through and decided they want to make sense of the world after the liberal narrative has collapsed. You need to work with your friends at their own pace and drill at the cracks that form organically until they get to that point.

From my ttrpg experience, you can deromanticize aristocrats to the point where damn near every one of them enthusiastically shows off his prized PeasantGrinder9001 with live serfs thrown in for extra effect and people will still act as if they are ultimately well intentioned, legitimate leaders who are just a little out of touch maybe and they just need some gentle persuasion to do better for their subjects that they obviously care about. Monarchybrain runs deep.

I’m lucky enough to have two people close to me who are commies despite living in a deeply reactionary hellhole. Not much I can do to guide here because both were chance encounters at work and a music event and we just had the thing where neurodivergent people instantly click with each other rather than anything politics related.

I also know a few liberals that have been steadily radicalizing over the past few years. If people already know and trust you and the first cracks in the liberal worldview happen organically they can be quite receptive to communist ideas. Just listen to their grievances and chime in with bits of history and theory that is relevant to them. Nobody became a principled communist overnight, it’s a long process and sometimes you need to pick your battles and smile and dissociate when they slip into reactionary thought that you don’t have a good angle to attack yet, but I got people immersed in a deeply russophobic and anticommunist environment to consider that maybe the Soviet Union was… le good? Or at least not evil incarnate 1984.

Be cool, be open about your ideals without forcing them, know your stuff so that you can speak confidently and source your claims, be patient, and meet people where they are and you may be able to commie your friends but they have to take the first steps on their own.

Aside from the very cool stuff already posted, the Mansu Hill Grand Monument in the DPRK is amazing. It’s so huge it’s hard to do it justice with photos. Fitting for one of the greatest acts of resistance in human history.

I also really like the style of Vietnamese posters. They look so happy and hopeful.

Every single day I am on the brink of ragequitting my job but the absolute state of the world makes me stay because I can’t afford the instability aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh

I have no idea who these people are aside from Yugopnik (alhamdulillah) but the idea is solid. I’m terminally online enough to have spent some time around the dark recesses of the internet and it’s good to have a sober view of how bad things really are in there.

Those postcards are amazing. I’ve always loved the artworks that cherish the Soviet Union’s cultural diversity.

Okay, so let’s talk about practicality, class consciousness, and dealing with the enfocers of empire as a citizen of the imperial core.

The reason why class consciousness is low in the US is because the material conditions are stacked against you successfully radicalizing large numbers of people. You, OP and others vaguely point at these conditions but I feel that you fail to actually grapple with them.

I believe a serious analysis would center the fact that American imperialism is the primary contradiction in the world, that citizens in the imperial core are net beneficiaries of imperialism and they have an interest in keeping the exploitation going. This obviously includes troops. American citizens sign up with the armed forces because being a stormtrooper for the empire is currently a lucrative deal overall. As long as the deal stays lucrative they will keep signing up and your efforts at centering their humanity and potential to become reformed and principled revolutionaries are unserious at best and a tone deaf insult towards the global south at worst. Troops aren’t tainted by evil they are bribed with superprofits and you will have an extremely hard time presenting them with a persuasive argument for world commiunism for as long as these superprofits exist.

Obviously as Marxists we believe that the only constant is change and that the material conditions that make citizens of the imperial core much more likely to fall in line and do their part in subjgating the rest of the planet are not eternal. However, the driving force behind these changes is not going to be the western left refining its strategy and sharpening its arguments, it will be the neocolonies violently routing the US war machine, one by one, until the superprofits dry up and the privileged labor aristocracy can no longer be maintained.

Once the chain of imperialism starts breaking from its weakest links the conditions will become more favorable for agitating in the core. However, the US government is not incompetent. It has waged class war against communists for more than a century and will most probably not sit by as contradictions sharpen and simply let you have a revolution. History has plenty of examples to learn from. They will come for the communists before conditions change too much in your favor. They will outlaw your parties and imprison or execute your leaders. You need to seriously consider the fact that the overwhelming majority of enforcers will turn the colonial policing tactics they are currently sharpening on the global south inwards and violently purge you instead of joining the revolution to “teach commies to shoot guns build tunnels and avoid being seen by drones” and develop your strategy accordingly.

Saying that troops are human and can be reformed is a useless platitude that prevents you from forming a useful strategy informed by a correct analysis of class struggle and contradictions. You need to engage with material reality and correctly identify which groups have revolutionary potential and which are likely to be your enemies. I think focusing your efforts on the internal colonies and marginalized people in your country is superior to wasting your time on troops, and this is due to the practical reasons detailed above, not a misplaced sense of moralism or belief in some supernatural evil. I also think that if you are a serious communist, your main concern regarding troops should be protecting yourself from them not protecting them from being unfairly demonized and your preoccupation with the latter makes you seem off in la la land.

As a non westerner whose main concern regarding American troops is getting them out of my country and not being bombed by them if we step out of line, I actually prefer hearing infinite death upon amerikkkan stormtroopers rather than yanksplaining how they didn’t realize they were going to kill children when they signed up. From my perspective, a westerner saying fuck’em is not dehumanizing the troops but recognizing the humanity of their victims and engaging in the most basic display of revolutionary defeatism available. I would obviously prefer solidarity in deeds but I understand that the material conditions inside the core do not favor the left and I don’t demand that you put yourself in danger on a futile quest to materially sabotage your military.

Considering this, I think you should focus on unlearning chauvinism, american exceptionalism and western-centric thought. Much like Nazi Germany was not defeated by German communists who were taught military tactics by disillusioned SS deserters, the war against US imperialism will not be decided by American communists convincing jarheads to defect. I am sorry if this sounds harsh and I would like to be proven wrong because that would make our shared struggle easier but you and the other Americans in this thread are not making a convincing argument.

I rewatched Stalker with my partner recently. Absolute masterpiece from the cinematography to the acting to the themes. The kind of movie that leaves you excitedly discussing it instead of going to sleep afterwards like responsible adults who need to work in the morning.

Ivan’s Childhood is another good one by Tarkovsky. Not as high on my banger list as Stalker but stuck with me all the same.

Also urging everyone to not sleep on The Ascent. It’s less of a war movie and more of a psychological drama and biblical parable set during the fascist occupation of the Byelorussian Soviet Republic. Director Larisa Shepitko was married to Elem Klimov who later went on to make the more famous Come and See and the influence is palpable. Her death in a car accident while scouting out sites for her next movie was a tragedy and a great loss for Soviet cinema.

Exactly this. I don’t remember seeing threads about reforming ICE agents when they were executing American citizens in America. Nobody was concern trolling about moralism and demonization when American citizens were rightfully enraged at being murdered in the street by voluntary paramilitary death squads. Why is it that when American troops are engaged in an active mass murder campaign across West Asia the attitude suddenly changes? Do Americans realize how dehumanizing and alienating this is for everyone else?

Come and See and it’s sibling The Ascent. Tough to watch but essential.

The White Tiger. It’s a weirder and mostly metaphorical WW2 movie about the incomplete defeat of fascism and how it’s bound to return. Hits harder and harder every year that goes by. ;_;

Stalker and Solaris by Tarkovsky.

Apocalypse Now

Scarface

Animated stuff: The End of Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Akira

Not an American and I feel like the past few weeks have been an absurd fever dream with the constant imperial troop apologia going on around here.

Yes everyone can be theoretically reformed given enough time and resources. Even the einsatzkommandos who were burning soviet villages to the ground in 1942 were probably reformable but focusing on that while they were in the middle of enacting a genocide would be obviously extremely dehumanizing towards their victims. Puyi was reformed after he was put on trial for war crimes and was no longer a threat to anyone else. We can focus on reforming imperial troops after they have been disarmed and routed and are not an active threat to the majority of the world. Western leftists need to take a break and ask themselves why out of all possible battles they are picking this particular one at this time and consider how tone deaf it feels to everyone else.

Yes, people sign up due to their material conditions not out of some moral inadequacy. The material conditions in this case are the superprofits the imperial core sucks out of the rest of the world and the fact that they have enjoyed several decades of unrivaled military hegemony. Yes some imperial troops do get got but for most of them war has been a fun human safari where they get to call overwhelming firepower on poor brown people. And yes, troops are still net beneficiaries of imperial explioitation, I can’t believe we are actually debating this. The imperial war machine being defeated and driven out of its neocolonies and made unable to outsource the worst of the suffering required to keep capitalism running to the global south will change those material conditions so your support is better directed towards the axis of resistance.

I am begging americans to stop, take a deep breath, then make a serious effort at considering the perspective and struggles of the global south that is actively being bombed, starved and terrorized. Ask yourselves if writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about reforming the people actively engaged in dropping bombs is really the best you can do right now as communists who believe in international solidarity.

I wish yanks would just shut up. Shutting up when you can’t do anything better is praxis. The burgerreich is participating in a genocide, kidnapping heads of state and pushing us closer and closer to WW3 just as my life was somewhat stabilizing for the first time in years and I’m not even allowed a little Death to Amerikkka as a treat without getting scolded by some western “leftist”.

Happy International Women’s Day, comrades. We hold up half the sky.